


It Should Have Been Me

by mustachio



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Angst, Basically this is nothing like my usual, Guilt, M/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 10:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3378047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustachio/pseuds/mustachio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joaquín’s last words to Manolo echo in his head constantly. He didn't mean them. He didn't. How did things come to this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Should Have Been Me

_Yes, it should have._

Joaquín’s own words echo in his mind as he pounds against the door of the Sanchez house. It’s more forceful than it needs to be, but this can’t wait. It can’t wait.

He needs to talk to Manolo. He needs to apologize.

“Manolo! Manolo are you home? I need to talk to you! Manolo!”

He slumps down against the door when noone answers. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t know where else to look for Manolo if he isn’t at home.

_Yes, it should have._

He didn’t mean it. He could never mean it. Manolo is his best friend, his  _brother_. He loves Manolo in a way he’s only ever loved one other person.

He thinks about María lying cold and dead in her bed and suddenly the rain feels like ice. He shivers. His uniform is dripping wet; his boots have turned to puddles.

_It should have been me._

No. It should have been either of them.  _It shouldn’t have been either of them._ They are the best people Joaquín has ever known. Neither of them deserves to die.

But one of them did.

Joaquín isn’t expecting it when the door opens. He nearly falls to the floor, but Carlos Sanchez holds him steady. Joaquín looks at him and doesn’t quite expect him to look so old. He looks tired and worn out. He straightens himself out, forces himself not to notice the wrinkles in Carlos’s clothes or the slouch in his shoulders or the red around his eyes.

“Manolo. Is—Is Manolo here? There’s something I need to tell him. Something that can’t wait.”

He tries to keep himself calm, tries to keep himself from rushing and jumbling his words, but it’s a struggle and his heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of his chest.

“He is here.” Carlos says and there’s something about the way he says those words—the heaviness and the finality in his voice that makes Joaquín’s heart stop its escape attempt and possibly stop completely.

_It should have been me._

“Can I—Can I speak to him? I said something terrible to him. I need him to know that I didn’t mean it, that I was too upset at the time. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Outside the rain begins to fall even harder. It pounds against the roof at a deafening volume, but it doesn’t manage to drown out the words echoing in Joaquín’s head.

_Yes, it should have._

Without waiting for an answer, Joaquín walks in the direction of Manolo’s room.

“You’re too late for that. Manolo is dead.”

_It should have been me._

Joaquín’s foot comes down from its intended step too forcefully. The sound of it seems to echo through the house. He turns slowly and when he’s facing Carlos again, Carlos won’t look at him. He takes a step forward. He doesn’t go any farther than that.

He tries to look for something in Carlos’s face that will indicate Joaquín misheard him, that this is some sort of cruel joke. He comes up short.

“No. No, he can’t be. I just saw him! He was alive. He can’t be dead!”

  _Yes, it should have._

He runs to Manolo’s room. He knows that Manolo won’t be in there or that if he is, he won’t hear any apologies. He'll be just as cold and dead as María.

The room is a mess. There’s half-finished sheet music scattered across the desk and floor, songs that only Joaquín ever heard when Manolo was in his beginning stages of his writing and didn’t want the Rodriguez brothers to hear them yet. The wooden sword from their childhood is peeking out from a drawer filled with old knickknacks and things from before María went to Spain and everything changed.

On the bed lies Manolo. His face is colorless and when Joaquín grabs his hand it’s as cold as ice. He falls heavily to his knees, still holding Manolo’s lifeless hand. Manolo is smiling and Joaquín doesn’t think he’s ever hated seeing Manolo smile until this point.

_It should have been me._

 “Hey, Manolo. Wake up.”

He squeezes Manolo’s hand, hoping that will do something to rouse him.

“Manny, come on this isn’t funny! I need to talk to you. We need to go to María’s house! It isn’t right if both of us aren’t there. Come on, Manny.”

From his periphery, Joaquín sees Carlos come to the doorway. Joaquín knows he’s being too loud, he knows he should be quieter, that Carlos probably wants to tell him as much.  But Carlos doesn’t enter the room and Joaquín doesn’t acknowledge him. Still on his knees, he uses his free hand to shake Manolo.

_Yes, it should have._

“You have to wake up, Manolo! I can’t lose you and María in one day! I just can’t!”

He presses Manolo’s hand against his eyes in an effort to keep the tears from coming. It only barely works. His eyes burn with the unshed tears and the lump in his throat threatens to choke him.

“I know I said some shitty things earlier, but I didn’t mean it. You have to know that! This isn’t what I want! You’re my best friend. I should have never said it should have been you so come on. Just wake up!”

He goes to shake Manolo again. He knows it won’t do him any good, but he has to try. He has to try everything he can to wake Manolo up. But he doesn’t get the chance to do it again.

_It should have been me._

Joaquín can’t be sure when Carlos closed the distance between them, all he’s sure of is that at some point he must have done it because Carlos is grabbing him by the back of the neck and throwing him against the wall. Manolo’s hand hits the bedframe without Joaquín holding it.

“What did you say to my son?”

It’s been years since Joaquín has been afraid of anything, but standing here now with Carlos Sanchez’s fists clenched in the fabric of his shirt, breath coming out in seething hisses, and his voice as cold as Manolo’s hand, he is afraid now. Joaquín can’t speak, can’t admit to what he said. He opens and closes his mouth three times before Carlos tightens his grip.

“What. Did. You. Say.”

Carlos looks him directly in the eye now.

“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I never meant for this to happen.”

Joaquín looks back at Manolo’s body. With that smile on his face he honestly does look like he could just be sleeping.

“That isn’t what I asked!”

He looks back at Carlos and then at the ground.

“After—After María died he said that it should have been him. And I—”

_Yes, it should have._

Joaquín cuts himself off. He can’t make himself say it. He can’t. Carlos shakes him hard enough that his head hits the wall. Joaquín hates that he doesn’t feel the pain.

“I agreed with him.”

Carlos lets Joaquín go and swiftly reaches for one of the swords at his back, but the sound of something falling to the floor stays his hand and has both of them looking down at the fallen object.

It’s a small, shabbily made medal in the shape of a bull.

Carlos takes a step back. Joaquín bends down to pick up his old medal. It was one of the first he’d ever gotten.

Manolo had spent days making it for him after Manolo had gotten reckless during practice trying to show off for Joaquín. It was the first time Joaquín had ever watched him in the ring, even for practice, and Manolo had wanted to make it worth Joaquín’s while. But he’d only been practicing for a few years at that point and in the middle of doing one of his ridiculous tricks sprained his ankle and couldn’t get out of the bull’s way. Joaquín ran into the ring and covered him until Carlos managed to wrangle the bull back into its pen and sent both the boys away.

Three days later, Manolo pinned the medal right above Joaquín’s heart and when Joaquín looked up from admiring it, Manolo had kissed him.

“You aren’t even half the man your father was.”

Joaquín straightens himself out as much as he can. His shoulders stay slouched and his body feels far too heavy for movement, but he has to get out of here. He can’t stand to look at Manolo’s body anymore. He can’t stand to have a man he once considered an uncle look at him with such disgust.

The walk from Manolo’s room to the front door feels like it takes years. Carlos follows behind him in silence. It’s deafening.

He takes one last look inside the house before he leaves. He spots a portrait of Manolo on the far wall. His grin is lopsided and he’s clearly uncomfortable, but Manolo had never liked pictures of himself. He glances back at Carlos.

Carlos shakes his head.

“He would have done anything for you.”

The door shuts in Joaquín’s face. His heart still feels like it’s frozen in his chest and barely makes it half way back to the Posada house before he falls to his knees in the mud. The burning behind his eyes becomes unbearable and the strength he had to keep the tears back before fails him now.

“It should have been me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my writing tumblr, [polyships](http://polyships.tumblr.com).


End file.
